EL VALLE DE LOS CAÍDOS, Spain — In a wooded valley some 60 kilometers northwest of Madrid, the wounds of Spain’s violent history are being torn open.

El Valle de los Caídos — or the Valley of the Fallen — has stood largely untouched since a massive war monument was completed in 1959. The site is the resting place of Spanish dictator Francisco Franco and José Antonio Primo de Rivera, the leader of Falange, the far-right party that supported him. It is also one of Europe’s largest mass graves, housing the remains of 33,700 people killed in the Spanish Civil War between 1936 and 1939.

An initiative to exhume the bodies of several of those buried here could soon disturb the peace, reflecting a change in the country’s attitude to the war’s bloody legacy.

In May 2016, a court authorized the exhumation of Manuel and Antonio Ramiro Lapeña Altabás. The two brothers, both republicans, were killed at the start of the civil war, which was triggered by Franco’s rebellion against the elected republican government. Manuel was shot in August, weeks after the war started. Antonio was killed by a firing squad in October.

“This is extremely important for us because we want closure. We want to be able to leave the past in peace” — Rosa Gil

The brothers were originally buried in a mass grave in their hometown of Calatayud, in northeastern Spain. When the Valley of the Fallen was completed in 1959, their remains — along with those of thousands of others — were transferred to the new memorial without the family’s knowledge, as part of Franco’s plan to make the site a monument to those killed in the conflict.

The Lapeña Altabás family only discovered this fact in 2010, after decades of visiting two separate sites where they believed the brothers were buried.

“To think that they were taken away without permission and on top of that, that they were taken [to the Valley of the Fallen], right next to the dictator and José Antonio Primo de Rivera, was yet another humiliation,” Purificación Lapeña, Manuel’s granddaughter, says.

Thousands of families in recent years have tried to find and exhume loved ones who were killed during the war, or the ensuing years. The current campaign to exhume relatives from the Valley of the Fallen — led by seven separate families — is unusual for including the families of nationalist, not only republican, fighters.

“Six are from the republican side and two are on the nationalist [Francoist] side,” says Eduardo Ranz, the lawyer who represents the families. “It’s very important to bear that in mind. This is not just something that is significant to one side or the other.”

Pedro Gil Calonge died in 1937 in northern Spain, fighting for Franco. When his remains were dug up from a cemetery in Zaragoza in the early 1960s and moved to the Valley of the Fallen, the family was not notified — not even his son Silvino, a pro-Franco politician during the dictatorship, knew his father’s body had been relocated.

Rosa Gil, the slain soldier’s granddaughter, says her elderly father was stunned when he discovered the truth, a decade ago.

Her father thought of the transferal of the ex-fighter’s remains as an “abduction,” she says. “It’s abducting someone when they’re dead, but it’s still an abduction.”

Although her siblings and cousins disagree on a number of political issues — she describes herself as having leftist leanings — they all agree their grandfather should be exhumed from the Valley of the Fallen.

“This is extremely important for us because we want closure,” Gil says. “We want to be able to leave the past in peace.”

After the court authorized the exhumation of the two republican Lapeña brothers, the Spanish government, worried that the unprecedented decision would open the floodgates, hurriedly altered the law. The other six families were barred from following the same civil legal procedures to make their cases.

The tomb of Francisco Franco at the Valley of the Fallen | Philippe Desmazes/AFP via Getty Images

Other problems also arose. Patrimonio Nacional, the government-run national heritage agency that manages the Valley of the Fallen, requested further information on the Lapeña case, delaying the process by several months. When it finally approved the process, the Catholic Church — which manages the monastery next to the Valley of the Fallen and still holds Mass in the basilica every morning — refused to cooperate.

Santiago Cantera, the prior responsible, has ignored the judicial order and continues to block access to the crypts where the bodies are held. He declined to discuss the case when contacted for this story.

“We have a clear judicial ruling which authorizes us to go in there, we also have a team of scientists who are all ready to go in and do their job,” says the lawyer Ranz, who filed a lawsuit against the prior earlier this month for disobeying a court order.

“But the problem is, we can’t open the door. I’m not speaking metaphorically when I say that — I mean it literally.”

* * *

Work on the Valley of the Fallen began in 1940, the year after Franco’s victory in the civil war, and relied on the manpower of republican prisoners. Franco’s decree at the time stated that it was intended as a tribute to “those who died for God and the Fatherland,” an apparent reference to those Spaniards who had fought for him. Its huge scale and stern architecture, meanwhile, reflect its status as a symbol of National Catholicism, Franco’s far-right ideology.

A 150-meter-tall stone cross towers above the monument. Below, a vast esplanade leads to the basilica entrance. Franco was buried there on his death in 1975, and the fresh flowers that can still often be found on top of his tomb suggest his political ideas have not disappeared altogether.

“There are people who are a bit obsessed with Franco” — Alex Navajas, hotel manager at the Valley of the Fallen

In the years that followed Franco’s death, the country’s political class agreed to keep historical memory off the political agenda, in order to smooth the transition to a parliamentary democracy. An amnesty law was introduced and, for a long time, the past was off limits.

But in December 2007, the Socialist Workers’ Party (PSOE) government of José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero introduced a “Law of Historical Memory” that sought to formally acknowledge the victims of the civil war and dictatorship, as well as their families, and paved the way for the removal of symbols of the regime.

Dozens of statues of Franco were removed from town squares and the names of streets dedicated to the Caudillo and his generals were changed. Many on the right saw the law as needlessly raking over the past. Yet the initiative failed to satisfy many on the left, who felt it was too timid.

In Madrid, the limited implementation of the law is visible on many street signs. One is still dedicated to the División Azul, the Spanish soldiers who fought under Adolf Hitler in World War II, while another bears the name of Juan Yagüe, a Francoist army officer best known for slaughtering hundreds of civilians in the city of Badajoz during the war.

An old man arrives for a mass to commemorate the 36th anniversary of the death of Franco | Dominique Faget/AFP via Getty Images

Yet by far the biggest physical reminder of Franco is the Valley of the Fallen.

Many Spaniards have never visited the site and have little interest in it. Others, often on the left, are repulsed by its existence, comparing it to a monument glorifying Hitler and pointing to the handful of extremists who treat it as a place of pilgrimage. Yet there are also those, particularly on the right, who insist the Valley of the Fallen is an innocuous piece of history whose critics have twisted its true meaning.

“There are people who are a bit obsessed with Franco,” says Alex Navajas, who manages the only hotel at the Valley of the Fallen.

Born in 1975, three weeks before Franco died, Navajas staunchly defends the monument’s aesthetic and moral value, insisting that its stunning natural setting and the fact that it acts as a resting place for casualties from both sides of the civil war make it a place of peace and reconciliation.

“A lot of people on the left say: ‘This is terrible, this is hatred, this is whatever’ — but that’s not true,” he says. “It’s like the pyramids of Egypt. People say: ‘But the pharaohs were terrible and slaves died.’ OK, but the pyramids are world heritage and you can’t change that.”

He adds: “Here in Spain there are so many people who are ashamed of our own history, especially when it comes to Franco.”

“One of the objectives [of Ciudadanos] is to be a party of the right that is not associated with the past” — Emilio Silva, president of the Association for the Recovery of Historical Memory

Navajas believes this shame is to blame for what he sees as a lack of vocal support for the Valley of the Fallen on the part of the Spanish government.

Historical memory has long been an uncomfortable issue for the conservative governing Popular Party (PP), which was founded by former ministers of the Franco regime. The party, which did not respond to interview requests for this article, opposed the PSOE law of 2007, claiming it opened up old wounds. The PP still resists initiatives that attempt to reckon with Spain’s dictatorship.

When it came to power in 2011, the party eliminated the existing budget apportioned to helping families locate and exhume remains from mass graves. It also shelved a PSOE proposal to turn the Valley of the Fallen into a museum and visitors’ center.

When leftist parties in the Valencia region proposed a series of new measures related to historical memory last year, the PP’s Luis Santamaría accused them of “abandoning the spirit of the [democratic] transition.”

* * *

Exactly 40 years after Spain introduced its new democratic constitution, there are signs that the political consensus is shifting.

Two new parties — Podemos and Ciudadanos — led by younger politicians who are less burdened by the baggage of the dictatorship and democratic transition, are challenging the traditional powers’ grip on the country’s collective memory.

Podemos and associated coalitions on the new left have been the most active in dragging these issues onto the national agenda. In November, Podemos’ Deputy European Minister Miguel Urbán said he wants to take a group of fellow EU parliamentarians to the Valley of the Fallen, to show them that “Franco died but Francoism didn’t.”

Right-wing supporters hold a march to the Valley of the Fallen in November 2017 | Pablo Blazquez Dominguez/Getty Images

The liberal Ciudadanos party, the most popular in the country according to a recent poll, has been more ambiguous about the issue. But it is showing signs of moving away from the rigidity of the PP.

“One of the objectives [of Ciudadanos] is to be a party of the right that is not associated with the past,” says Emilio Silva, president of the Association for the Recovery of Historical Memory (ARMH).

“Bit by bit they’ve understood that if they are going to occupy the political center, they have to defend basic human rights and reject the dictatorship.”

In December, coinciding with the tenth anniversary of its own Historical Memory Law — and in a tacit admission that the legislation hasn’t gone far enough — the PSOE presented a series of new proposals. These included removing Franco’s remains from the Valley of the Fallen, creating a DNA bank to help with the identification of the estimated 114,000 bodies still in unmarked graves across Spain and reinvigorating efforts to remove Franco-era street names and other symbols.

“Each generation is better informed than the previous one. We have better knowledge, better resources. This is going to be the generation that solves all this” — Eduardo Ranz, lawyer

Such strident measures are unlikely to be implemented on a national level while the PP is in government. But change is underway in several regional administrations — in the Basque Country, Andalucía, and Valencia — where new local laws support the exhumation of victims and the removal of symbols. Similar legislation is due to be debated soon in Cantabria, Extremadura and the Balearic Islands, regions that are governed either by the left or regional nationalist parties.

The PP governs the Madrid region, where the Valley of the Fallen is located, meaning that kind of initiative is unlikely there for now. But Ranz, the lawyer, is optimistic.

“I think the children and the grandchildren [of victims] are much more aware that this problem, this historical memory cause, needs to be resolved,” he says.

“And what’s more, each generation is better informed than the previous one. We have better knowledge, better resources. This is going to be the generation that solves all this.”

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Raul

Spain will strike at voters and keep hostage the corpses of people long dead but it is a modern democracy…. or maybe not….

Posted on 2/5/18 | 3:14 PM CET

Cor

Don’t be naif, many members of Ciudadanos come from extreme-right (fascist) gangs, they are xenofobic and have never condemned Franco regime. This party was born in Catalonia (yes!) to fight the Catalan education system that was proved successful for 30 years, and was backed by several of the most powerful banks who missed a “decent” right Spanish party.

Posted on 2/5/18 | 3:28 PM CET

Tim

And of course, no mention of the victims of “republican” (communist) massacres, church burnings and so on.

Posted on 2/5/18 | 4:01 PM CET

Cor

Can you imagine a “Hitler Foundation” in Germany or a “Mussolini Foundation” in Italy receiving money from the state? No? Well, this is what happens in Spain with the “Franco Foudation”, it receives public money because of “national interest”.

And it’s precisely this fascist party, the Partido Popular, that Politico carries water for with all its anti-Catalan propaganda articles.

Y’all proud to be fascist sympathizers? Or do you prefer to think of it some other way?

Posted on 2/6/18 | 12:40 AM CET

J James

Raul, I’d like to know how you keep corpses hostage?

Are people “being struck at”, being tortured, disappearing, whatever since the democratically voted for constitution of 1978? If so, please do tell. Evidence free insinuation is so very easy….

Posted on 2/7/18 | 12:33 AM CET

J James

That question was for you Raul.

Posted on 2/7/18 | 12:34 AM CET

Cor

J James, the government of Felipe Gonzalez used public funds to organise the GAL, a terrorist group that tortured and killed many people, to “fight” agains ETA. Before the Barcelona Olympics in 92, several people related to catalan nationalism were arrested, kept in jail and tortured to “avoid incidents” during the games (Operacion Garzon). These are only two examples. Since 2010 Spain has been required 8 times by the European High Court for Human Rights to carry out investigations on demands against tortures that have been never answered. Spain is the only european state where fascism was never defeated.